Angelou - Oh Pray My Wings Are Gonna Fit Me Well

Copyright1975 by Maya AngelouAll rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Angelou, Maya.
Oh pray my wings are gonna fit me well.
Poems.
I. Title.
PS3551.N46405 811.54 75-10268
eISBN: 978-0-307-83326-6Random House website address: http://www.randomhouse.com/ v3.1 Theres a long-legged girl in San Francisco by the Golden Gate. She said shed give me all I wanted but I just couldnt wait. I started to Pickin em up and layin em down, Pickin em up and layin em down, Pickin em up and layin em down, gettin to the next town Baby. Theres a pretty brown in Birmingham Boys, she little and cute but when she like to tied me down I had to grab my suit and started to Pickin em up and layin em down, Pickin em up and layin em down, Pickin em up and layin em down, gettin to the next town Baby.

I met that lovely Detroit lady and thought my time had come But just before I said I do I said I got to run and started to Pickin em up and layin em down, Pickin em up and layin em down, Pickin em up and layin em down, gettin to the next town Baby. There aint no words for what I feel about a pretty face But if I stay I just might miss a prettier one some place I started to Pickin em up and layin em down, Pickin em up and layin em down, Pickin em up and layin em down, gettin to the next town Baby.

I went to a party out in Hollywood, The atmosphere was shoddy but the drinks were good, and thats where I heard you laugh. I then went cruising on an old Greek ship, The crew was amusing but the guests werent hip, thats where I found your hands. On to the Sahara in a caravan, The sun struck like an arrow but the nights were grand, and thats how I found your chest. An evening in the Congo where the Congo ends, I found myself alone, oh but I made some friends, thats where I saw your face.

I have been devoting all my time to get Parts of you out floating still unglued as yet. Wont you pull yourself together For Me O N C E

Other acquainted years sidle with modest decorum across the scrim of toughened tears and to a stage planked with laughter boards and waxed with rueful loss But forty with the authorized brazenness of a uniformed cop stomps no-knocking into the script bumps a funky grind on the shabby curtain of youth and delays the action. Unless you have the inborn wisdom and grace and are clever enough to die at thirty-nine. It comes in black and blue, indecisive beige. In red and chaperons my life. Sitting like a strict and spinstered Aunt spiked between my needs and need.

It tats the day, crocheting other peoples lives in neat arrangements ignoring me busy with the hemming of strangers overlong affairs or the darning of my neighbors worn-out dreams. From Monday, the morning of the week, through mid-times noon and Sundays dying light. It sits silent. Its needle sound does not transfix my ear or draw my longing to a close. Ring. Damn you!

Your skin like dawn Mine like dusk.

One paints the beginning of a certain end. The other, the end of a sure beginning.

One innocent spring your voice meant to me less than tires turning on a distant street. Your name, perhaps spoken, led no chorus of batons unrehearsed to crush against my empty chest. That cool spring was shortened by your summer, bold impatient and all forgotten except when silence turns the key into my midnight bedroom and comes to sleep upon your pillow. The day hangs heavy loose and grey when youre away.

A crown of thorns a shirt of hair is what I wear. No one knows my lonely heart when were apart.

Youve got another love and I know it Someone who adores you just like me Hanging on your words like they were gold Thinking that she understands your soul Poor Girl Just like me. Youre breaking another heart and I know it And theres nothing I can do If I try to tell her what I know Shell misunderstand and make me go Poor Girl Just like me. Youre going to leave her too and I know it Shell never know what made you go Shell cry and wonder what went wrong Then shell begin to sing this song Poor Girl Just like me. The highway is full of big cars going nowhere fast And folks is smoking anything thatll burn Some people wrap their lives around a cocktail glass And you sit wondering where youre going to turn I got it. Come. And be my baby. Some prophets say the world is gonna end tomorrow But others say weve got a week or two The paper is full of every kind of blooming horror And you sit wondering What youre gonna do. I got it. Come.

And be my baby.

I couldnt tell fact from fiction or if my dream was true, The only sure prediction in this whole world was you. Id touched your features inchly heard love and dared the cost. The scented spiel reeled me unreal and found my senses lost. Lying, thinking Last night How to find my soul a home Where water is not thirsty And bread loaf is not stone I came up with one thing And I dont believe Im wrong That nobody, But nobody Can make it out here alone. Alone, all alone Nobody, but nobody Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires With money they cant use Their wives run round like banshees Their children sing the blues Theyve got expensive doctors To cure their hearts of stone. But nobody No nobody Can make it out here alone. Alone, all alone Nobody, but nobody Can make it out here alone. Now if you listen closely Ill tell you what I know Storm clouds are gathering The wind is gonna blow The race of man is suffering And I can hear the moan, Cause nobody, But nobody Can make it out here alone. Alone, all alone Nobody, but nobody Can make it out here alone.

She wished of him a lovers kiss and nights of coupled twining They laced themselves between the trees and to the waters edge.

Reminding her the cratered moon lay light years away he spoke of Greece, the Parthenon and Cleopatras barge. She splayed her foot up to the shin within the ocean brine. He quoted Pope and Bernard Shaw and Catcher in the Rye. Her sandal lost she dried her toe and then she mopped her brow. Dry-eyed she walked into her room and frankly told her mother Of all he said I understood, he said he loved another. For Adele

The Student The dust of ancient pages had never touched his face, and fountains black and comely were mummyied in a place beyond his young un-knowing.